The Bar Collection
by jelenamichel
Summary: A collection of one-shots that have something to do with bars: planning to go to a bar, drinking (or not) in a bar, leaving a bar, regretting being in the bar, etc. The one-shots will be just that—one-shots. None of them will be in the same timeline and they'll be different genres. But the common thread is T/Z and a bar. Part one: Eighty-six.


**A/N: This is the place I will keep all my one-shots that have something to do with bars: planning to go to a bar, drinking (or not) in a bar, leaving a bar, regretting being in the bar, etc. The one-shots will be just that—one-shots. None of them will be related to each other. They won't necessarily be in the same timeline. They'll all center on Tony and Ziva, but their relationship might be different from one 'chapter' to the next. Some might be fluffy, some might be dark, and they will vary in quality. The only common thread is that they'll have something to do with a bar. Updates will probably be slow. Enjoy.  
Disclaimer: Disclaimed.**

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**EIGHTY-SIX**

_Timeline: season eight-ish. (Why? Because that's when I wrote it.)_

There are nights when Ziva wonders if she would get more sleep as the mother of newborn triplets than she does as an NCIS agent.

More often than not, Ziva spends the witching hour meticulously combing over a crime scene. Or sitting at her desk trying to work out why an event turned into a crime scene at all. Or lying awake in her apartment and thinking about all the things she will have to do the next day to help the team work out who is responsible for the crime scene. Rarely does she get home at the end of the day, snuggle into her PJs and enjoy eight uninterrupted hours of deep sleep. She can count on one hand the number of mornings she has awoken feeling rested and refreshed in the last year, and these days she cannot contemplate facing the day without at least two coffees before 0900.

In short, she is a woman who is tired. But she has been determined to address that tonight.

She had spent her Saturday off doing necessary domestic duties such as vacuuming the floor, doing her washing and cleaning her toilet. But when the winter sun started fading around 1700, she had traded rubber gloves for a book and a glass of wine, curled up on the couch, and let her imagination float away to the 1800s Europe depicted in her novel. After four solid hours of reading her eyelids began to droop, and she didn't fight the urge to curl up in bed and have an early night. As she had pulled the thick, warm blankets up to her chin and listened to the peaceful silence of her apartment, Ziva had smiled. Team Gibbs was not on call this weekend so she knew that unless there was a major incident she would not be called into work, and she would be able to sleep through the night without being disturbed. Hell, maybe she would even let herself sleep in to 0600 tomorrow.

One relaxed and bright-eyed special agent coming up. Or so she had thought.

It is not the trill of her cell phone that ends up ruining her plans. Instead, it is a sharp and persistent knocking on her front door at 0200 that snaps her out of her dreams and makes her heart rate spike. She reaches for her gun on the nightstand before her disorientation has cleared, and then stumbles slightly as her head spins from jumping to her feet so quickly. Her shoulder bumps into the doorframe as she leaves her bedroom, but she makes no other noise as she crosses the cool floorboards on toes encased in thick, warm socks. Rationally, Ziva knows that if someone is coming to kill her or kidnap her or, hell, even just rob her, then chances are slim that they would knock loudly enough on her door to wake up her neighbors. But being cautious and approaching suspect situations with a loaded firearm is second nature to her, and she will not be trying to break the habit any time soon.

She is fully awake and her muscles alert by the time she reaches the door. She adjusts her grip on her Sig and, as another loud, angry knock sounds on the other side of the pine, she checks the peephole. Gibbs stares back at her through a fisheye lens, the lines around his eyes drawn deep with anger and his lips tight and thin with frustration. His left hand is wrapped around Tony's bicep, and she decides that the look on Gibbs' face is almost certainly a result of the glassy-eyes and lob-sided grin of her partner.

She has a feeling her evening is about to get a lot less pleasant.

She steels herself before unlocking the deadbolt and pulling the door open. Gibbs' expression doesn't change, but she notes Tony's eyebrows rising as if he is surprised to see her.

"Gibbs?"

"Did you lose this?" he asks gruffly, and yanks on Tony's arm for emphasis.

She eyes her partner, who is swaying slightly on his feet. She doubts Gibbs is enquiring about the current state of her and Tony's complicated relationship, but elects to tread carefully anyway. "Is that a trick question?"

Gibbs gives her his own special version of the stink eye in reply. "D'you think I came over here to play a trick on you, David?"

No, she doesn't suppose so.

Gibbs gives Tony's arm another yank, and it draws a soft 'ow!' out of the drunk. Ziva takes the hint, and opens the door wider and steps aside. Gibbs drags Tony over the threshold into her apartment as she flicks on the apartment lights.

"Hey," Tony smiles at her, and as he passes the smell of booze and cigarettes hit her like a punch.

"Whoa," she breathes out, and covers her nose. He has had a big night, that's for sure. She doubts she will get much out of him, and so directs her question at Gibbs. "What happened?"

As Gibbs lets go of Tony, his back finds the wall beside her kitchen. She watches as he executes a controlled slide against the wall all the way to the floor.

"Got a call from a bar that eighty-sixed him," Gibbs tells her. "It's a couple of blocks from here. Thought you might be involved."

She feels somewhat affronted by the accusation, but keeps her cool. Gibbs is clearly mad enough, and right now that anger is 95 per cent aimed at Tony. At this late hour, she does not particularly feel like drawing more of his fire. "I have not seen or spoken to him since I left work yesterday."

"Don' talk about me around me," Tony slurs from the floor.

Ziva recognizes the look that comes over Gibbs' face as the one he makes when he is deciding between slapping and shooting Tony for his sins, so she moves to defuse the situation. She puts her gun down on the hall table and then bends over to hold her hand out to Tony. "Tony, get up off the floor."

Tony squints up at her. "You can kick me out but jus' give me a minute."

She grips his clammy hand and pulls. "I am not kicking you out. Get up."

He uses her arm as much as the wall to get to his feet, and she winces at both the smell of booze that envelops her when he stumbles into her and the loud pop in his knee. Tony doesn't seem bothered by either, though, and lets her lead him into her living room. She drops him on the couch, and then clasps her hands together between her knees and bends over to look at him. She will make no move to touch him further while Gibbs is still there.

"Tony, what's wrong?" she asks softly. She decides to show empathy until she knows why he has gotten himself into this state.

"Wrong?" he echoes, and then presses the heels of his palms against his eyes. "Why'd there be anything wrong? I'm okay, you're okay, we're okay, Gibbs is okay. Everything is ooookayyyyy."

Contrary to his assertion, she does not believe that everything is okay. She sighs heavily and gives a moment's consideration to kicking him out after all if he is going to be a pain in the ass. But she doesn't think it is worth pissing off Gibbs over. Or punishing Tony. She leaves him on the couch and returns to Gibbs who is still hovering outside her kitchen.

"Did he say anything to you?" she asks, leading him into the kitchen. She retrieves a glass from the shelf and fills it with water.

Gibbs grunts, which Ziva translates as a 'no.' "He been drinking a lot?"

Ziva shrugs as she shakes her head. "I don't think so. Not since way back when he returned from agent afloat duties, but…" She trails off as Gibbs' eyes momentarily flick away from hers, and she wonders how often thoughts of that summer fill Gibbs' head when he drinks bourbon over the frame of a boat beneath his house. Thoughts of Jenny's death tug her eyes downwards to the safety of the water glass, and she refocuses on Tony. "It is unlike him to be drinking without a companion on a Saturday night."

A heavy sigh brings her eyes back up to Gibbs' face. It holds that look of paternal disappointment that always makes her feel like she should make a confession. But tonight, she is not sure what she is supposed to be confessing to him.

"What?"

Gibbs looks to the ceiling for strength from above before he leans in towards her. "Do us all a favor and work this out, Ziva."

The late hour and her never ending lethargy makes her want to stamp her foot and protest her role as her partner's keeper—for God's sake, he is in his 40s!—but she once again keeps her temper. "Yes, fine. I will talk to him."

Gibbs takes another step forward, right into her personal space, and she finds herself pinned by piercing blue eyes. "No," he says softly. "You and him. Work it out. Not tonight, but soon."

Heat rises to her cheeks and she has an unwelcome flashback to Eli catching her trying to climb out of her bedroom window when she was 14 to meet her boyfriend. Except that Tony isn't her boyfriend, and they haven't done anything to apologize for.

She swallows and lifts her chin to fight the charge. "This has nothing to do with me," she tells him, letting a warning edge finally creep into her tone.

Gibbs chuckles with doubt, but steps back to give her back some space. "Ziva, I think it has everything to do with you."

His tone is deliberately careful, and yet she can't help but fire back with years-old frustration. "Perhaps it has everything to do with _you_."

He holds her gaze silently. She thinks he might be challenging her to say more, to get it all off her chest and tell him to shove his rules that has caused her so much frustration over the years. Or perhaps he is waiting for her to control herself before she says something she will regret. For a moment, she considers fighting. She knows she is in love with the drunken idiot currently sprawled on her couch, and although it isn't spoken of and kept carefully cloaked, Gibbs certainly knows it. But knowing that she is n love with him doesn't mean that she is ready to tell him or try to have a relationship. Nor does it mean Tony is ready for it, if he is even in love with her anymore. Her frustration with Gibbs being one of the reasons she and Tony may miss their chance might haunt her until her dying day, but on this night it is not worth fighting over.

She feels her shoulders drop as the fight goes out of her as quickly as it rose. She ends the conversation by leaving the kitchen with the glass of water in her hand. Tony is still sitting upright with his head tipped back against the couch. She stands in front of him and holds out the water.

"Drink this," she orders harshly, taking her frustration out on him while he is still too drunk to notice.

Tony lifts his head to focus on her and then the water, and then he screws up his face in disgust and turns away. "I don't want it."

"Take it," she grinds out. "It is tough love, I know."

He curls his lip at her. "Less tough, more love, Ziva. I'm not even that drunk."

"You got cut off at the bar and then Gibbs had to come and get you."

He takes the glass reluctantly. "Maybe I just wanted to see him."

"Well then your plan backfired because he brought you to me."

He holds a triumphant finger in the air and flashes a drunken smile. "Ah! But that was the genius of my plan."

"Drink the water."

He does as instructed and then looks up at her with eyes that, for just a moment, look achingly sad. He blinks, catches a burp, and the look is gone again. "I didn't say hello," he tells her.

_Oh great,_ she thinks. He is entering the stage of his drunkenness where he attempts to be charming. When she is also drunk or a little tipsy, she is a fan of this stage because if he isn't charming, he is at least funny. But tonight, tired, cranky and increasingly emotional Ziva isn't looking forward to it. She humors him anyway. It is easier than fighting it.

"Hello," she replies flatly.

His eyes travel down her body to her toes and back up again, but his expression is more curious than slimy. "You look cozy," he states. "Were you asleep? You were asleep, weren't you?"

Ziva glances at her long-sleeved black t-shirt, red PJ pants and socks. "Yes, I was."

Tony winces. "My bad."

"Your bad what?" She doesn't know what he is talking about, and has even less of an idea about why he dissolves into a wide, affectionate smile.

"Ziva," he almost purrs.

His tone is beginning to make her feel a little uneasy and she thinks now might be a good time for Gibbs to leave. If Tony continues on this way, she does not need their boss to witness it. "Do you want to say thank you to Gibbs for picking you up and not killing you?" she suggests to Tony, and then immediately hates that she sounds like his mother.

Tony gives no indication of awareness that he is being coddled. Instead, he just looks past her and gives Gibbs a sloppy salute. "Thanks, boss!" he says cheerily. "You're one in a million. A king amongst men."

Gibbs heaves a sigh so heavy that he should be falling through the floor. "I'm leaving."

As she follows Gibbs to the door, Ziva wonders if the sadness she'd seen in Tony's eyes has been caused by something she has done. Gibbs has implied as much, but she cannot think of anything she might have said or done recently that would have upset him. Okay, she did make fun of the enormous burger and fries he had for lunch on Thursday, but that was only after he had made fun of a word she had mixed up with another. But they do that sort of teasing all the time. She can't imagine why he would suddenly be so sensitive about it.

"Gibbs?"

He grunts as he puts his hand on the doorknob.

"Did he really not say anything to you?"

Gibbs turns and looks down at her before glancing into the living room. His shoulder lifts in a casual shrug, but the look in his eyes is all-too-knowing. "Just something about pretending."

She is taken back several years to a heated and emotional argument in an elevator, and it knocks the wind out of her. "Oh," she manages.

He doesn't seem interested in exploring the meaning of Tony's ramblings with her. He fishes Tony's car keys out of his pocket and puts them in Ziva's hand. "Sleep tight, kid," he says, and then walks out of her apartment.

She is quick to close and lock the door after him in case he changes his mind and comes back. She can't deal with anything else Gibbs has to say tonight. Or anything else he wants to hint at. For a few moments she just stares at the door and thinks about that word that has caused her so much grief in the past. _Pretending_. Years ago, when she felt that she was at the end of her rope, she told Tony she was tired of pretending. She has rerun that conversation in her head over and over, and she has no doubt that at the time, she and Tony had been talking about two different things. She has always wondered if Tony had actually understood what _she_ had been saying; that she was tired of pretending that she didn't have feelings for him. Over the years she has convinced herself that he had been so angry at the time that he probably missed it, and she thinks it is unlikely that he would store the conversation away to deconstruct at a later date. She has felt positive that she got away with slipping up and telling him how she felt. But if he is now focusing on that word while his defenses are dulled by drink, and Gibbs is fingering her as the cause of her partner's woes, perhaps she has been wrong all this time.

Her eyes close with mild mortification and she leans her forehead against the door. If he has known all this time what she was trying to tell him, and he has still not addressed it, what does that mean? That he is embarrassed for her? That he is not interested? That he is at a loss over how to bring it up again? She sighs heavily until she groans. She supposes it doesn't matter now. If she is being honest with herself, she knows that he loves her. Whether that will ever translate into a fully formed and tangible relationship, she doesn't know. But he loves her at least as much as she loves him. That much is clear.

There is, of course, the possibility that she is reading too much into this. Perhaps he was not referencing their conversation from years ago after all. He could have been talking about anything. Just because Gibbs seems convinced that she is involved does not make it so. Gibbs has been known to be wrong in the past. The man has three ex-wives, after all.

Her thoughts are interrupted by a thump coming from the living room that reminds her she still has a guest to look after. She returns to the living room to find Tony sitting on the edge of the couch and wrestling with his jacket. The book she was reading earlier that day and had left on the coffee table has fallen onto the floor, and the coffee table itself has been knocked a couple of inches out of position. She watches as his elbow almost takes out the lamp on the side table and then decides it is time to intervene.

"Put your arms down," she tells him as she walks over.

Tony's battle with the leather jacket seems to have exhausted him, and he is quick to drop his arms to his side and let out a long sigh. She leans over him to peel the jacket off his shoulders and down his arms, and then she tosses it onto an armchair. Tony collapses back against the couch.

"Thanks, Ziva Dah-veed."

"Okay."

"Can I take your couch?" he asks, peering up at her with just one eye open. Then he waves his hand through the air. "I mean, not _take_ it. I'm not carrying it away. I just wanna borrow it. But _here_." He points at the ground.

She nods along with mild impatience. "Yes, I understood, Tony. I will get you a blanket."

She retrieves a soft lambswool blanket and a pillow from the linen closet and brings them back, and although she has only been gone for a few seconds, Tony has used the time to disappear. She dumps the bedding on the couch with a frown, and then heads to the kitchen. She finds him there, leaning back against the counter with an empty glass in one hand and a photograph in the other. He is staring at the photograph so intently (and so drunkenly) that she doubts he has heard her come in.

"Tony?" she says carefully, not wanting to startle him.

It takes a few moments, but eventually his eyes slide off the photo and across the room to her. This time the sadness in his eyes is balanced with humor. He turns the photo around for her to see. It is a shot that she found in a box a few months ago and put on her fridge. Tony, McGee and herself at the NCIS New Year's party in her first year on the team. She is sandwiched between her two partners, and they are all flashing wide, tipsy grins and toasting with champagne.

"Who's this guy?" Tony asks her.

"McGee?" she asks, unsure what he is getting at. "Yes, he has lost quite a bit of weight since then."

Tony shakes his head as she comes to lean against the counter beside him. "No, the other guy."

She eyes him with curiosity and a touch of concern. Obviously he knows 'the other guy' is himself, so what is he getting at?

He takes another look at the photo and then looks between it and her a few times. The sadness leaves his eyes and he grins. "Come to think of it, who's that girl? She's just a kid."

The comment sends one hand to her hip. "It was six years ago, Tony. Of course I look older. But not _that_ much."

"I do."

She begins to consider whether his drinking tonight was actually a result of the minor mid-life crisis he has been going through for the last, oh, five years. Sometimes he gets randomly and overly sensitive about his age. Sometimes she makes fun of him, but she senses that tonight he needs kindness. "No, Tony, you do not. You look about as old as you are. And that is definitely better than most men your age."

His face twitches in an expression that suggests he has not taken her comment as the compliment she intended it to be. But he doesn't fish for a better one, and that convinces her there really _is_ something wrong with him tonight. "Six years," he says wistfully. "I kind of can't believe we're still here."

She chuckles at the train her thoughts hitch a ride on. "You mean alive? Me neither."

"No," he says, shaking his head. Then he cocks his head and reconsiders that. "Well, sure. That too."

She nudges his arm with her elbow, encouraging him to get his thoughts out in the open. "Where is _here?_" she asks him.

He turns his suddenly intense gaze on her, and for a few moments he just looks down at her silently. It makes her heart thump and her belly tingle, and she wonders if that is his intention. But she doesn't know why it would be, just as she doesn't know why he has drunk himself past the point of polite and why he seems so sad to look back at the past.

He sways slightly towards her. "_Here_," he tells her as if the different inflection in his voice should make his thoughts crystal clear to her. But it doesn't, and unless he uses plain English to explain himself from now on, Ziva doubts she will find much more clarity in him tonight.

She takes the photograph from him and puts it back under its magnet on the fridge. "How about you go back in _there_," she tells him, gesturing towards the living room, "and get some sleep."

He aims a sigh at her for not keeping up with his thoughts, but drags himself back to the living room without argument. His butt finds the couch with force as he drops himself onto the cushions, and he rests his arm on the blanket and pillow she got for him. Ziva thinks it is time to say goodnight (so she can go to her bedroom and lie awake and play the night over in her head as she attempts to find a clue), but Tony isn't done with sharing his non-linear thoughts.

"Hey, do you think Gibbs has psychic abilities?"

She has to chuckle, but shakes her head. "No, Tony."

"So, how'd he know you're involved?"

"In what?"

He waves his hand around in no particular direction. "All this."

Her eyes wander around the room. "My apartment?"

Tony clicks his tongue with mild irritation. "No. This," he says, and finally directs the waving hand at himself. "And why'd he slap me so hard in the bar? He's got to be psychic to know he's gotta slap me when he slaps me."

She hovers in front of him as her throat grows tight at his confirmation that she _is_ somehow responsible for the way his evening turned out. She is torn between returning to bed before things get too deep and scary, and staying and indulging him further. She bites her lip and eyes her bedroom—that has got to be the smart choice—but her curiosity over where his head is at is stronger than her common sense. She sinks down to sit on the coffee table in front of him.

"Tony, he is not psychic," she replies. "He is simply good at identifying a guilty conscience."

"Guilty? I'm guilty?" he asks with disbelief, and then rejects this with a firm shake of his head. "No, I'm a cop. A good cop. Good cop, bad cop. I've always been clean." He pauses to frown. "Sometimes I screw up, though. Sometimes…a lot. Jesus, Ziva. I screw up _a lot_."

She puts her hand on his knee in comfort before she realizes what she is doing. "No, Tony, you do not."

He nods back at her and flashes a bittersweet smile. "Yeah, I do. Tonight's pretty great evidence of that. I was being foolish—" He stops abruptly, and she can almost see a new thought push the old one out of the way. His hand drops to hers on his knee and he grips it. "That's what made me think of you tonight," he says urgently. "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."

What she wouldn't give now to have him speak in plain English. He isn't making sense to her. Not even when she allows for the alcohol in his system. Why can't he just be straight with her for once?

"What does that have to do with me?" she asks, taking care not to sound as frustrated as she feels.

Tony chuckles knowingly. "Everything," he tells her with confidence. "Fools…fools are not borne lightly. And silence is the virtue of fools." He pauses and frowns as he gives thought to things he should not. "Wait. But if I rush in, I'm a fool. But then my silence, or _not_ rushing in, makes me a fool too." He favors their clasped hands with a serious look. "Well. That is just contradictory information."

She cannot bear the scattergun of his thoughts any longer, and frees her hand from his. "Okay. Tony, I do not know what is going on in here tonight," she says as she leans over to tap her finger against his temple, "but you are not a fool. And nor am I."

Tony smiles and regards her with affection that makes her stomach flutter again. "Yeah, I am, Ziva. Big. Time."

Ziva has the urge to shake him by the shoulders and yell at him to start making sense. Clearly, he is trying to say something important, but is hiding it behind riddles and self-flagellation while expecting her to be able to read his mind. There are days when she can do that. She knows that in the past they have managed to have entire silent conversations built only on the movement of eyebrows and pursed lips. But God, she is so tired and he is so drunk, and she knows she just isn't going to get the message tonight.

"Tony, I am sorry but I just do not understand what you are trying to say."

The direct statement makes him grin, and he drops his head back against the couch. "Yeah, that's okay. Prob'ly good. This ain't my finest hour, sweet cheeks."

It is the most sense he has made all night. She thumps the pillow beside him. "Get some sleep. You will need to restore some energy to get through the horrific hangover you will have tomorrow."

His chuckle is colored with anticipatory pain. "Yay," he says flatly.

She pats his knee and gets up to go back to the front door and double-check that she locked it. She reclaims her gun from the hall table, and as she turns off the kitchen lights, he calls out to her.

"This blanket is so soft!" he cries out. "It's like snuggling in a cloud!"

She returns to find him rubbing his cheek against the lambswool. He looks ridiculous, and she has half a mind to film him nuzzling the pale pink blanket to use against him in the future. But she has mercy.

"Yes. It is a good blanket."

He fans it out over his chest and legs. "I'm going to be really comfy under this."

"Good."

He looks up at her with a smile bordering on the dopey, and then seems to realize that he's being a dork over a blanket. The smile slides off his face and his expression turns embarrassed and self-aware.

"I'm not supposed to drink when I'm like this," he admits.

She moves to take a seat beside him, but on the arm of the couch. "Why _are_ you like this?" she asks gently. "What happened?"

"Nothing," he says, and then looks up at her with another one of those looks that she knows he thinks must mean something to her. "_Nothing_ happened."

And that is what bothers him, Ziva realizes. But she still doesn't know what exactly he is talking about. Nothing between them? Well, nothing has happened for years, so she can't understand why he would be bothered by it now. Nothing further with his career? He hasn't said anything to suggest that he wants to move from where he is now. Nothing significant in his life? Sometimes she thinks that is actually a blessing. She's had to deal with too many significant events over the last few years, and she is enjoying her current vacation in the mundane. But perhaps Tony isn't. He has seemed restless in the last few months. Perhaps he wants a new challenge.

She puts her hand on his shoulder. "Well, the new year is near, yes? Perhaps you can resolve to make _something_ happen."

"Yeah," he says as his eyes fall to her mouth.

His eyes linger for so long that she wonders if she has just inadvertently encouraged him to make a move on her. Encouraged him to stop pretending. That isn't what she meant to do. She knows she isn't ready for this. She still needs to pretend. She needs more time to work on getting her head on straight after all the drama she's caused and dealt with in the last few years.

She just doesn't feel good enough for him yet.

She turns her head away, hoping that if his thoughts are focused on her then he will get the message to back off. A few moments later he clears his throat, and she relaxes at what sounds like a shift in conversation.

"Advance warning, Ziva. I'm probably going to be really angry with myself tomorrow morning when the hangover hits me."

She tucks her hair behind her ear and shoots him a quick smile of acknowledgement. "Aren't you angry with yourself now?"

"Yeah," he shrugs. "But in the morning I will be far less pleasant about it."

She has to chuckle at that. "Because you are so very pleasant now."

He smiles back at her. "Yes, I am."

"Yes, you are," she echoes, but shakes her head.

"Gibbs might not think so," he allows.

Ziva picks at a loose thread on the drawstring of her PJ pants. "I do not think Gibbs responds to pleasant."

He grunts. "I bet Shannon was pleasant."

The turn in conversation is completely unexpected, and she doesn't immediately respond as she tries to get her head around it.

"I bet she was nice to all their neighbors and made chit-chat with the other Marine wives," he continues. "And that she had pleasant conversations with Kelly's teachers, and—"

"Tony," she cuts in softly. What is the point of all this?

He looks up at her, embarrassed and sad again. "I don't know what I'm talking about," he says with a one-shouldered shrug. "But I do know that as good as you look in your PJs, you still look tired."

"I am."

"Sorry. You should go back to bed."

"So should you," she says pointedly.

He nods. "Right. I will."

She squeezes his shoulder again and gets to her feet, but before she can return to her bedroom Tony catches her hand in his. She looks down just in time to see him pull her hand to his mouth, and then give the back of her hand a brief kiss.

"Thank you, Ziva," he says quietly, not meeting her eyes.

The simple, chaste touch makes a lump form in her throat. She doesn't know whether he is thanking her for indulging him or for letting him stay. But whatever she has done for him tonight seems to have helped him out somehow, and that is worth the irritation she felt when he and Gibbs had arrived.

She squeezes his hand. "Okay. Get some sleep."

She lets go of him, and this time she is able to get all the way to her bedroom and back into bed without him calling out to her. With her bedroom door slightly ajar, she hears him moving around on the couch until finally the lamp on the side table snaps off, and silence returns to her apartment. There is little chance of her falling back to sleep any time soon, though. Not when she has so much more Tony-related material to worry about and deconstruct than she had earlier in the evening.

Tony had seemed deep in thought about a range of things, from looking older than he had six years ago to being a fool of some kind, to drinking when he was sad and about whether Shannon Gibbs had been a pleasant woman. Barring the last one, the topics seemed to continue his recent pattern of reassessing his life and finding that it lacked something. Her throat closes when she considers that he might actually be coming around to the thought that the thing his life lacked, was her.

Three years ago, the suggestion would have made her flush with excitement and relief. But now, after everything that had happened…God, she isn't ready. She can't bear the responsibility of filling his life until she has gotten comfortable with her own. She is still struggling with accepting who she is and the scars she will always carry, not just from Somalia but also from her life pre-America. She has changed so, so much from who she used to be, and for the most part she is proud of the changes. But that doesn't mean she is used to them, and it doesn't mean she knows exactly who she is anymore. Perhaps she never will, but at some point she will have to find comfort within her own skin. And until she has that, until she has forgiven herself and so many others for what she has done and what has been done to her, she won't be ready for the next phase of her relationship with Tony. She doesn't want to come to him as damaged goods that he will have to fix.

So, for as much as she does love him, and for as badly as she wants things to change between them, right now she honestly hops he isn't ready for her either. Because if he is, Ziva can't help but think that this case of bad timing will mean they will miss their chance for good.

**END.**

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**Oh, don't worry. There will be another, happier one-shot in the collection to follow.**


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